,

<'

CHAPTER

Wagner Dodge Retreats in Mann Gulch

"What the hell is the boss doing, lighting another fire in front"of u.'i?"

AGNER DODGE WAS facing the moment, the decision of a lifetime. A fast-moving forest-and-grass fire was about to overrun him and the fifteen firefighters under his command. Less than two hours earlier they had sky-jumped into a fiery gulch in Montana. Now an enormous wall of Harne was racing at them up the tinder-dry ravine. They knew they were running for their lives, and Dodge knew their time 'N3.5 running out. Dodge's mind, still remarkably in c " llG:ol, was also conclud:>;i11g;i$~~be:3.B~:hjs,91~l}'ka91l!n.lUst;_reached.a ~oint of no exit. --, '.' . -'; , r .' '; "". ". ". .
... .'
,

He estlmatee that ill a mere runety seconds the codlagratlOn. would overtakehim and the crew.If he .couldstill discovera way out or invent someway to survivewithin, it would make the-dif-:ference between miraculous escape or catastrophic failure, between savinghimself and his fifteen men or losing all.

I
~, F

A Fire in Mann Gulch

LOCATED IN A rugged area of central Montana, Mann Gulch rons into the Missouri River in ~.region named Gates of the j'yfcHmtainsin 1805 by the famed noi.tlTwest explorer I\kri-

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THE

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VVtzgner Uodge Ketrearsm

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R. Wagner Dodge (clutching a handkerchief)

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\ji!:. ""'" Gukh and Missouri River, August 20, 1949 ':ti

wether Lewis. In such inaccessible areas, fire is always a worry, hut on August 5, 1949, the danger was greater than usual. By late summer, central Montana was so bone dry that the U.S. Forest Service put the ::<.: p0tential at 74 on 'a scale of 100. Tw~n~~,five miles, t?~q:~, ,$.P~F-!?-J"tl~~en;1, ,,!~~:~~~gJ~~~,~9fq:y;:;: , temperat:\1ie:fot':th'e'day'of 97 'degTees" Fameiiheit: 'A small thundershower moving through the area offered momentary respite. But the storm also meant lightning, and lightning often means fire. By 2:30 P.M.,a crew had loaded onto a C-47 at the smokejumper base in Missoula. Thirty-three-year-old R. Wagner Dodge was the crew chief. A man of few words, he had fought many fires during his nine years in the business, and he was deservedly the team boss for the technical expertise he brought to the attack. The fifteen men who checked their parachutes "

Mann

and climbed on b0ard with him wet:eyoung, eager, conditione<\'~

" ",.,:::They:hadbeenfightttigJii'~s all ~er'an.:dwere:readyf()l""

"":01 one. Some were college students who had volunteered'for tJi~;~ summer; others were career firefighters. Several were \V,'orJ4,~

War n veterans.

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Among those who took their seats for the twenty-minute trip.~
to Mann Gulch were Robert Sallee, underage for the work a~l'~ seventeen, and Walter Rumsey. The outfit also included Davi4:~ Navon, a fonner first Jieutenant in the IOlst Airborne Divisionl! ' who had parachuted into Bastogne, Belgium, during the 1944,'~
German counteroffensive, and William

11

J. Hellman,

who On1yj
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. a month earlier had parachuted onto the Ellipse between th~1 }.,

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THE

L t- ,\ D I-, R S HIP

1'v[0 MEN

Wagner Dodge Ret1'eatJ in Mann Gulch

.~ ~

Rohm Sal//'e and rValw" Rumsey

\V';ite House and the \Nashington Monument. The men under Dodge's command hailed from _Massachusetts and Montana, New York and North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee. As the aircraft circled twice around Mann Gulch, Dodge and spotter Earl e(1 ,:::~.<;couteda safe landing zone. The meR were L.:i~ed d()w~~,0uE!=he plane was bouncing abQutjn the turbuoftheni felt half Jence, an early hint of what W;1'S to come. Many sick, and one, too nauseous to jump, opted to return to Missoula. On Dodge's signal, the others leapt out the open door, targeting a landing zone high on the upper left side of the ravine, marked as point 1 in Figure 2.1. Dodge and his crew hit the ground at 4:10 P.M.and by 5:00 had gathered their chmes, loaded their packs, and shouldered their shovels. Dodge suggested that his men take some food ;md drink before moving out. In fire jumpe;s' parlance, it was a "u::n o'clock fire" on the other side of the gulch-one they

The Mann Gulchfire, August 5, 1949

would fig!.1raii :light :md expect to hav~ under contro~ by 10 ,A.M.the: next day. August fires often begin laie-in theaftemoon . as lightning rumbles through, and most of them are small enough to be contained by the following morning. The men knew that a brief rest now would probably be their last until the job was done. This day, though, they were moving without several requisite items, including a map and radio. The map was falsely believed to be in the hands of a firefighter already in the area, and the radio had been destroyed when an equipment parachute failed to deploy" Still, on Dodge's orders they moved down the gulch single file, confidently prepared to confront the blaze.

THE

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U7agner Dodge Retreats in Mann Gulch

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Three Terrible Discoveries

As DODGE APPROACHED the fire line, he told his men to wait in the center of the gulch (point 2) while he moved ahead to scout within a hundred feet of the front. It was during that time, at point 3, that he made the first of three terrible discoveries of the day. Here he found that the blaze was far more dangerous than he had guessed from aerial reconnaissance. A ground wind was coming across the river and over the ridge, at twenty to forty miles an hour, whipping the flames up and blowing them down his path. A vigorous wind is an oxygen supply, nai.;lre's giant bellows. Alarmed,. he retreated to the rest spot and instructed his men to head for the mouth of the gorge. He himself retreated further back to the landing zone to retrieve some food he had forgotten, leaving his men to move down the gulch without him. Dodge's instructions were logical. The fire was more threatening than expected, but safety would be assured if he could place his crew between the fire and the river. Should the fire force them into the river, so be it: they would swim out some yards, stay low to avoid smoke, and, once the fire swept by, climb back onshore. The Missouri River was Dodge's insurance.1

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Rescue Gulch

Fire at jwnp time

FIGURE 2.1 WAGNER DODGE IN MANN GULCH, AUGUST 5,1949

The firefighter alreadyin the area linked up with Dodge and his crew, but the full complement of sixteen men was a team only in the loosest sense. The men had all undergone a threeweek training program earlier in the summer,and they had been disciplined to work together, react quickly, and (ollow their cOID.illander's. l~ad. But Dodge had to exercise his command
"-'mtb6'utccli.e:~W1iQi1ty::Qf"p:Wit~cli.iIL:$V:~11:_m<:?~~diffip~I!t.,'pe' .;.,

. was an unknown quantity to many of the men under him. Severalhad worked with him before; all knew of him. But they had never worked together as a single group, under Dodge or anyone else, and Dodge himself was not even sure of all their names. Under U.S. Forest Service policy, it is the amount of rest, not the amount of camaraderie, that determines how men are assembled for a day's jump group. Those with the longest respite since their last fire ar~ the first to go. A hardened set of individuals this group was; a hardened combat platoon it was not.

..A.s the men moved down the gulch without Dodge in the le~d, the fi~e&S'h.t~1'.})~camediviged in two. As much as five. hl.lndredfe'et separafed the two Slibgroups, neither of which was quite sure where the other was. Twenty minutes later, at about 5:4, Dodge finally regrouped his men and resumed the lead, moving them further toward the mouth of the gulch. Here he made a second, more terrible discovery (point 4): the winds were swirling around the flaming ridge, sweeping burning branches and glowing embers into the air and across the front of the gulch. In the few minutes since their arrival in the gulch, fiery eddies had closed the escape route. Dodge's alarm bells-all of them-were sounding.

THE

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Wagner Dodge Retreats in Mann Gulch

J

At SA5, Dodge reversed course, saying nothing to his men, but they surely knew why, since they too had seen the windwhipped smoke across the gulch's mouth in front of them. The crew kicked into a run up the left-hand side of the gulch. \Vithin minutes, Dodge passed word down the line that all equipment-packs, saws, axes, shovels-was to be discarded and' that they must move as fast as they possibly could (point 5)' !Ie knew, and they must have known, that what had been a routme jump into a ten o'clock fire was now becoming a dash for their live;. It is hard to imagine what could be worse than what Dodge and his men had already encounfered in their short time in Mann Gulch. Less than an hour had passed since they had stashed their parach~tes and confidently set out to do their job.

The Solution
AT 5:55, DODGE abruptly stopped, lit a match from a matchbook he carried, and threw it into the prairie grass in front of him (point 6). His fire, almost instantly a widening circle of
i

Dodge lit appeared to be a "backfire"-one

l

flame,burned fast. Bythe normal measuresof firefighting,what

intended to burn off

.
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enough fuel in a limited strip to prevent the real fire from advancing.And indeed he would be asked, at a subsequentgovernment inves~gation into the eventS of August 5, why he had chosen this moment of extreme urgency to light such a backfire. In response, Dodge would assert that this' was not and could not have been a backfire: with less than a minute remaining until

But Dodge, at the hea<;l of the line, made his third and most terrifying discovery of the day just a few minutes later. A forest fire rarely moves at more than four or five miles an
.

I.

,light

hour, an advance that smoke jumpers can always outrun. But Mann Gulch was part of a transitional zone-an area where mountains yield to plains and forest timber to prairie grassand as the men fled from the fire, the forest gave way to shoulder-high grass, dense, dry, and ready to explode. The Plains Indians feared a prairie grass fire almost as much
as anvthing. Theylrnew that the worst couldnot be outrun, and.

he was engulfed by flames, a backfire would not have cleared enough grass to stop anything. Why, then, had he paused to the fire? The answer seemed both impossibleand simple: he had lit the fire in order to take refuge inside it.
As the ring of his new fire spread, it cleared a small area of all flammable substances. It was not much of a safety zone, but it would have to tIo. He jumped over the blazing ring, moved to itS smoldering center, wrapped a wet cloth around his face, pressed himself close to the ground, and waited. As he-nad' anticipated, the surging fire wall rounded both sides of his small

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- circl~, leapt over the top, but found nothing to ignite wher~ be
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estimatedthat as'fastashe and'hismencouldmoveup whatwas

now becoming a, grassy slope, the towering wall of fire would

ridge;andleavinghim unscathedin his tiny asylum.Be stood~h'

brushed off the ash, and found he was no worse for wear. He

movefaster.Within a minuteor two,Dodgeestimated,perhaps sooner,he and his men wouldbe overtakenby flames.
'

had literallyburneda hole in the ragingfire. Buthe had not forgottenhis crew.Just beforehislightingof
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The roar was deafening. Sap in scattered trees was superhearing and exploding. Smoke, embers, and ashes swirled in all directions. The apparent options offered Dodge no escape: stand and be fat~llyburned; turn and be fatallyburned; run and be fatally burned.

the escapefire, Robert Sallee and Walter Rumseyhad been second and third in a line of sprinting men that stretched behind Dodge many dozen yards down the hill. Like the other firefighters, Sallee and Rumsey h~d left the aircraft when Dodge said "Jump," they had moved toward the mouth of the gulch when he said "Go," and they had dashed uphill when he said "Run." Now, as Sallee and Rumsey 'stumbled on a stopped

THE

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Wagner DodgeRetreatsin Mann Gulch

James O. Harrison were melted into the dial at 5:56. It was the worst fire-fighting disaster in Forest Service history and would remain so for forty;five years, until fourteen men and women were killed on July 6, 1994, on Storm King Mountain near Glenwood Springs, Colorado, combating a vicious wind-driven grass fire that also suddenly engulfed them.

Dodge, they saw their boss motioning them to come inside an expanding ring of fire. "This way!" he shouted. Though Sallee and Rumsey could not hear Dodge in the deafening inferno, they could see what he wanted from his frantic waving. They also saw an enormous fire wall at their ba<;k,and it was about to overwhelm both them and Dodge's circle.

The Fatal End

SALLEE AND R~};\1SEYgJanced 3t Dodge but kept going, rounding his fire circle, mounting the ridge to their left, and moving down the other side into what is ironically called "Rescue Gulch." Fires do not stop at the ridge tops; they only slow momentarily. The Mann Gulch fire swept into Rescue Gulch as well, but Sallee and Rumsey chanced upon their own oasis, a strip of stone without vegetation, a rockslide some seventy-five feet wide that had denied purchase to grass and trees alike (point 7). They too squeezed toward the middle, the
'~

A Credibility Spiral
LEADFRSHIPIS 1. product of both today's ,!('.jOHS and yeslCi- , day's groundwork. The fatal combination that emerged in Mann Gulch was partly what Dodge did or did not do on August 5, but also partly what he did or did not do well before the smoke jumpers ever climbed aboard the aircraft. We will first review his decisions in the air and on the ground in the gulch and later turn to what he might have done earlier in the summer to prepare for that fateful August afternoon. First is the question of why Sallee, Rumsey, and the other thirteen smoke jumpers refused to join Dodge inside his circle of fire. It was, :rfter all, an immediate solution, a lifesaving solu-

fire raced down both sides, and a few minutes later, suffering

,-+, from neither bums nor smoke, they worked their way back , toward Mann Gulch. The remaining thirteen men also rushed by Dodge and his widening circle of flame. Dodge heard one man say, as he glanced at the escape scheme, "To hell with that, I'm getting out L: 1.Zr':'in:'.cJJt~ :.-, h ft d h :::;":::':;'(j f ~n~t~.":baucii'W'Q.,~us-e ..~ll,g..:~r,~p:a ,er,:,~p~~~g'PY:,Q9.tl,ge,
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looked back and later estimated that most of the men had passed within twenty to fifty feet of Dodge, just outside the burning ring. After that, however, their stars were not propitious: the thirteen chanced upon no bare spots. As Dodge had anticipated, they were quickly overtaken by the prairie grass fire they could not outrun (point 8). Unscathed, Dodge, Sallee,and Rumseygathered and went in search of the others. Several of the men survived a few hours, but all were fatally burned, most not far from where they had started less than an hour before. They had left their ,landing zone at about 5:00 that afternoon. The hands on the watch of

Sallee later reported, "I saw him bend over and light a fire with a match. I thought, with the fire almost on our back,. ~,;,the hell is the boss doing, lighting another fi!e in fr()nl (.)' us?" 'H~:,:",::;;,:'::$~:ee::':w:as,dose!:to:,'RUin$ey;, 'and he expiessed'a 'conClusion ' reache'd by both: "We thought he must have gone nuts." Yet they had, it must be recalled, dutifully followed all of Dodge's earlier instructions. When he had said to plunge out the open door of the airplane, they had done so; when he had moved them toward the mouth of the gulch, they had gone; when he had said to drop their equipment and run for their lives, they had obeyed. Why had his authority suddenly failed him? One explanation-that the trailing crew members did not see or understand Dodge's frantic waving-may apply to some. Bm the two survivors said that they could see Dodge and what he intended, and Dodge himself reported that he had seen 1110s1 0: n

H'flWler DodgeRetreats in Mann Gulch

THE LEADERSHIP IvIOI\tENT

~i,c hrefighrers come near enough to his circle of fire to see his o;lgnals. A more plausible explanation is that by this point Dodge had simply lost much of his credibility. A leader's credibility can be defined as the authority to make binding decisions based on a record of having made them well before. Dodge was crew chief hy virtue of the latter. But in less than an hour, his credibility had been shattered. His decision on where to land had placed the men behind a dangerous fire. They had marched toward it, ;:he:. ;7lGveGaround it, and finally rared from it The ~ccumu\ation of erroneous decisions finally made his latest action-the lifesavmg one-too dubious to accept. Dodge's credibility had collapsed; worse, he had not yet realized it. By unplication: If you have made several problematic decisIons in a row, be prepared to have your leadership questioned. It may be a moment of personal trial, a point when (he cooperation of others is most needed but least forthcommg.
I

Missteps and Few Words

EXACERBATINGDODGE'S DOWNWARD credibility spiral were .Nn small missteps, too minor to draw much no:ice ~~ t the time bu t argllably big enough. to .accelerat~;*e~o~s,pil1;-t.\r~1;~:\Yhep:,Dodge returned to tl--ledrop site at the upper end of lviann Gulch to retrieve his food, he sent his crew on without him for a few minutes, relinquishing his leadership. Thus he momentarily commanded the battle from behind the lines, not the front. In pondering why the generals in World War I so often displayed incompetence in command, Peter Drucker turned to the explanation offered by his own high school history teacher,

" wuunded veteran of the Great War: "J3.ecause not enough gencl<-,-b \'.ere blled; they stayed way behind the lines and let oth.u"' '-~~.' lhe f!ghting and dving.""
L L

axes, he was asking them to give up a large part of what defined them as a crew under his command; he was, in other words, ordering his soldiers to shed their uniforms. In both instances, Dodge's actions made sound logistical sense. The first permitted a more rapid movement toward the safety of the Missouri River; the second allowed a more rapid movement away from the accelerating blaze. Yet both chipped away at Dodge's credibility when he most needed it later. A solution lay not necessarily in avoiding such actions', for in this instance it j<:hard to im:lgi~e n;}t 0rdering the equipment disposal, but in a persuasive communication of why he acted thus. But probably most damaging to Dodge's credibility was a management style that fostered little two-way communication. Wagner Dodge was a boss of few words, a person who neither expected much information from his people nor gave much in return. As the men flew over Mann Gulch, sixteen pairs of eyes and ears were gathering information on the conditions below, and some might have guessed that the swirling smoke and air turbulence signaled dangerous ground conditions. Yet Dodge relied on only a single pair of eyes, his own. Similarly, in moving toward the fire, then around it, and finally away from it, o~ers reached their own assessment of the best way out. Yet in no case did Dodge ask for their appraisal. He h']d ~ diverse human information system at his disposal but rr.ose.to avail hi!l1selfof - ..:_p:ol.1e-pf it.,Jmagine, by- wayof.-analogy/achief' exeCujii~.wIld never asks his salespeople what they are hearing from their customers or a hospital president who fails to ask his nurses what they are learning from their patients. At the same time, Dodge also gave little information. He did not share his appraisals, barely explained his actions, scarcely even communicated his growing alarm. "Dodge has a characteristic in him," Rumsey would later tell the Board of Review. "It is hard to tell what he is thinking." "When Dodge sent his crew members toward the mouth of the gulch after the brief reconnaissance of the fire, he instructed them to move out of the "thick reproduction" because it was a "death trap," Sallee
,

';':'_"'-id, \\rbt:!1 Dodge toid hi'_:men to drop their shovels and

55

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U11,gm'rDo(~'!;(' Harmts ill Alann Gttkb

later reparted. But atherwise he dispensed little infarmatian, and Rumsey and Sallee abserved that he did not even laak particularly warried. When he suddenly reversed caurse near the mauth af the gulch and the crew was maving uphill, Navan, the farmer paratraaper, was still taking snapshats. Dadge testified at the hearing that he had nat c~mmunicated directly with his men fram the time he retreated far his faad until he ardered them to. drap all their equipment. Near the end, as the crew was avertaken by crisis and panic, circumstances permittee! littl.e disr~t<:"i('\n. Bnt 1lI'until that time, cammunicatian had been feasible. \;Vithaut revealing his thinking when it cauld be shared, Dadge denied his crew members, especially thase nat familiar with him, an appartunity to. appreciate the quality af his mind. They had no. ather way af knawing, except by reputatian, whether his decisians were ratianal o.r impulsive, calculated 0.1'impetuaus. Later, when the quality af his mind did display itself in a brilliant inventian-the escape fire-his thinking was still taa much af a cipher to thase whase trust he urgently required. By implication: If yau want trust and campliance when the need far them cannat be fully explained, explain yaurself early. If yau need infarmatian an which yau must saan act, ask far it soan. Being a persan rJf te"W 'y,.'vrds may'be fine in a
.,.'.:technicaL:pasirionp;~'\it.:it:is pasitia~l af leadership.' '~":pres~dptipl~,far;:: di~~st~F ,in;.a.. . ...,

the entjre enterprise. The Board af Review concluded l'"

of his men would have survived if they had "heedeu efforts to get them to go. into. the escape fire area." But
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innovation was ready far use, nabady believed it could SU'-l , ," And Dadge's escape fire was a genuine innovation \,'f;n~ Americans an the Great Plains had invented the concept :1,-'(~ntury earlier, and since the Mann Gulch disaster it has become ;, standard lifesaving measure in the afficial survival repcrt(\Jre in But before Service did nat train its -;11; . '. r 949, the Farest r;
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111m pel'S In ~ettmg

t:'sc~?e

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in Mann Gulch had ever heard ofthe tactic. "Vhy was it that Dadge was the anly member of his SIXleci'man force to. invent the escape fire? All faund themselves jn rhe same tightening vise, all saw that their time was almost l1p.,Jll desperately saught a way out. Yet only Dadge seeming" h;Hi'he' capacity to. discaver the lifesaving salutian. \-\'hen asked hu\\ "t had came an the idea of the escape fire, he replied. !r list seemed the lagical thing to. do." 1\va explanatians for the failure af simultaneous im'cntJul' came to. mind, bath painting to. what Dadge might have done earlier in the summer. First, he was an autacrat, an instructIOn giver, and ance in the gulch there might have been no othen"ay to. lead. But with eadier appartp...ities to. meld a team and maId a culture, he might have enc()l~:':~ged ~ach member to learn hem' lOJea.ch his;oWI1fuagments.atid"ffiake his O\Vl1 decisians. Thh b nat to. say that fastering individual discretian is the same as allawing discretianary directian. The challenge for Dodge '''as to. instill individual judgment while aligning it around common purpose. Empowering team members to. reach their own decisians that will simultaneausly pull the team in the same direction is no easy task. It is (] learned capacity Dadge would h:!\c had to have cultivated well betore August 5. A secand explanation again refers to. Dodge's styll~,,'j ,I m,~i: of Fc\vwords, He had fought fires far nine years ,~!I(;h:.,; il"
a '.Tew foreman r t since 1945. Some on his ereII' h:'c' "'.n',. 1 ",

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Other Escape Fires

WAGNER DODGE COULD never have anticipated the specific eventS in Mann Gulch. Yet it is instructive to. ask what he might have dane in June and July to. prepare far them, nat knawing precisely what lay ahead but anticipating the passibility that flawless actian and effective leader~hip were likely to. be essential far'whatever came along, Dadge masterminded ;, winninp, id,.>~i that cauld have s,1Vcd

fires for kss than three manths. Sa]]ee and RlUJ1SC} ,",

11;;

H'llgner Dodge RetTeats in l'vlann Gulch

'l H E LEA D E R S HIP \\ 0 MEN T

InlZ their hrst smoke: jump. Dodge's mind held memories of hundreds of fire, soil, forest, and wind conditions he had seen, do/,ens of strategIes he knew to have worked, and some he had -;<:e:1 bil. It was this repository of practical experience that had i-.:dto his promotion to crew chief-and it was this storehouse he had at the ready when he realized that he and his crew had' but a moment to rescue themselves'. UnfortUnately, though, it was his database alone. Dodge might have shared his wisdom earlier, telling and retelling the amazing. sometimes curious, n\(,:lsional1y disastr0l1s stories of hi.; fires of the past. Secondhand accounts \..<1n never fully substitUte for the personal seasoning of years on the front line, but they can furnish a diverse set of prior conditions against which to test the present. In being tight with words, Dodge denied his men the benefit of his nine years of experience. The value of downward communication is amply confirmed II) ,my number of stUdies. Research on flight crew performance ,iuring cockpit simulations, for instance, has revealed dlat lead<:'1"S uf higher-performance cockpit crews share more plans, offer morc prediccions, describe more options, sound more warnings, and provide more explanations..\ By implication: If you expect those who work for you to exercise their own judgulf:nt:, pi",}\ri.de them with the decisionnaking experience now., if YOt1.count0.0.thew. to. ~n~erstand (he conditions as best they can, share your past experience with them now. If your leadership depends on theirs, devolvI

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Dodge's blandishments. Or suppose Dodge had cultivated a loyal ally or second in command whose faiili was virtually unshakable. If Sallee, ilie next in line as ilie crew raced up ilie gulch, had been that ally and had entered the circle of fire, oiliers almost certainly would have followed as well. The premise is simple: Everybody is crazy from time to time, but it is rare that two people are at the same moment. This was one of me discoveries of ilie famous experiment by Solomon Asch: If everybody around you says that line A is longer than line B when me objective fact is obviously the opposite, you will <.:ave in. But if you helve just one other doubter, just one naysayer who breaks the mold, you are emboldened to break it too. If Sallee, as the loyal ally, had joined Dodge, omers would have been more likely to be lured into the escape circle, and we might well have never heard of a fire in Mann Gulch. By implication: If you have difficult decisions to make and insufficient time to explain them, a key to implementation may be loyal allies who are sure to execute mem through thick or thin.. Establishing mose allies now is ilie only way to ensure that their support will be at the ready when needed, and it will sometimes be needed when it is far too late to be created.

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Panic an.d:Peijorfnilnce .

ing responsibility and sharing stories is a foundation upon which it will reside. Thinking strategically when confronted with a crisis or challenge is a learned skill that requires sustained seasoning.

The Leader's Airy'

\ ..;,\ THO.~GHl experiment, a "what if" analysis, ask yourself v:h"t -'Nouldhave happen(:d if Sanee or Rumsey had followed
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SOME OF DODGE'S crew members might have rushed by him and his lifesaving fire less from a rational calculus and more out of sheer panic. Sallee and Rumsey mought Dodge must be crazy to be starting a new fire. But omers, by the time mey neared Dodge's fire, were surely being driven by terror, and in such a state rational judgment is an early casualty. Psychologists tell us that panic sets in when the mind succumbs to stress and fails to take in new information about a du'eatening event, or fails for similar reasons to take advantage of prior experience germane to the threat. Either way, it is hard to imagine that

THE

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l\.IOMENT

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J1/{/gncrDodge Retreats in JJmm G'ulch - FIGURE
~.~- PERFOR.\1:~~E 0; FIRE DEPAR;~1ENT C~':P~~I~S

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FIGURE 2.1. PANIC AND PEHFORI,tANCE Performance Panic point

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AND LIEUTENANTS U:-WER NORMAL AND HIGH-STRESS (FIRE COMBAT) CONDITIONS

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the thirteen men behind Sallee and Rumsey, those whose backs were even closer to the raging flames, \vere not overwhelmed with fear. As panic short-circuits the mind, our mental processors grind to a halt. Then, unable to reach an informed judgment on what to do next, we reach into our memories for what worked well before. A psychologist's label for this is "reversion to last learned behavior." If we manufacture mainframe computers but the marbt is sinking and our Cred1l0TS and investors are demand: -,"'ihgmore; 'leesndo"~gairrwh~~ has::been:key.to,.QJJr:s'g.~9~S1)jnth.e... past: making mainframes. Sirnilady, if we have a wall of flame behind us, running from it-a successful strategy in the pastwould seem to make good sense now. Anybody near a raging bonfire knows to back off; anybody caught in a building fire knows to rush out. Yet in this instance what made perfect sense in the past would prove disastrous in the present. Panic overwhelms smart decision making, but it is also true that modest levels of stress can improve ~t. This is the curvilinear relationship between stress and performance, as shown in Figure 2'.'2.To the left of the panic point, the adrenaline feed

concentrates the mind, mobilizes energies, and eliminates distractions. To the right of the panic point, however, we no longer think late.4 so clearly, too overwhelmed by stress to reason or caleuThis can explain the firefighters' flight past Dodge, but how is that Dodge was able to keep such a cool head when others could not? An explanation comes Tom a study of urban firefighters, those who ride trucks rather than jump aircraft to reach a blaze. Focused on dep2rtmellt captains and Jieutenants, the $t1.Id.y_r.ey.~led,that>,th~..:.performanceof experienced officers improves under high uncertainty and stress, while the performance of inexperienced officers declines (see Figure 2.3).' This helps us understand why Dodge's experienced intellect invented the escape fire while others were focused only on flight. It is also a reminder again that experience is a critical foundation of leadership. A warning is contained therein as weIl: Ivlodestly stressful periods can enhance productivity-we all know of managers who are forever fostering minor crises to get tl1ings done. But highly stressful periods 'l;'orsen the performance of inexperienced people if they are pressed beyond their panic POil1L

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. U'agnerDodgeRetTeats in Mann Gukh Building a team with its own culture and cohesion brings another key advantage. For well-formed, highly committed groups, the panic point is shifted far to the right. As sttess intensifies, their performance curve continues to rise well after others' have plummeted. They can endure extraordinary threatswith an equanimity that individuals and poorly developed groups could never bear. French Resistance cells challenging the Gennan occupiers during World War II were a case in point, as were the Allied fighting units that landed on the beaches of C-rerman-heldNormandy.

By implication: In periods of anxiety and stress, it is your least experienced associates who will reach the panic zone first. Providing newcomers with as much early. training and mentoring as possible is one way of moving their panic point well to the right when the heat is on.

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UNDER FOREST SER,VICEpolicy, Dodge took command of a just-assembled crew as he cltmbed on board the aircraft. While
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Or considerone of the most famousmilitaryattacksof all,

George E. Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. After the Union army
h~d stalemated. the Confederate forces during two days of pItched battle In July 1863, Robert E. Lee readied his rebel forces for one final, decisive blow against the Union center. It was to be a daunting task. Twelve thousand troops under Pickett's command were to march across an open !nile of farmland. They would have artillery support, but they would also be assaulting a well-fortified Union line behind a stone wall on an extended ridge: General James Longstteet, ordered by Lee to execute the attack, was convinced of impending failure. The thousands of combat veterans of Virginia and North Carolina who were assembling to mount the attack could see it !night well be their last. Yet In full ~ew of Union cannons and ip.fantry, ' , S?~:marGlred::;th&'.tettiBl~:;'mile.:Pickett's'"':~'"
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maximal rest time between events. It als~ ens~ed admmistrative flexibility, since crew dispatches vaned WIth the scope of each fire and could range from two men to several planeloads. Managerial careers are filled with comparable events. Like Dodge, you have probably found yourself more than ~nce assigned to oversee a group of people with whom you are lIttle familiar and within which acquaintanceship is equally scarce. You have just been promoted, rotated, relocated, or otherwise reassigned, and those who now report to you may predate you by no more than days. You are a church minister who has taken over a congregation with an ever-changing membership, a fastfood manager who has mken over a franchise with an ever' h 9 . f. ,s ,~ .lt~ ~';c .~ gn ,w ,- i,<:;9 ,.,1~' ' "ill:.maVJ;>e,.a, sos;~er orkfor.ce . , . . \ . , . '''.. Cl...~ .-'"<. ,,, ,'." "".:;L'"'''"''"-!'''~-'--'=,"'''r . ~r.~A,,,,,,.<.'--+~''''''''''''''',..~~.."...' . ,. ,
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over a t~am who~eplay~~s are as'unf:inulra:rto"6il[anom:e'r:as--they are to you. Seen through today's lens, Dodge would have surely preferred it otherwise. Building a self-contained, mutually reliant team is one of the proven ways of delivering optimal perf ormance under duress. But it requires months, even years to dev~lop the culture and cohesion that are the engines ~f sut~ work-team performance. Given the seasonal na~re of hISbU~Iness, the best Dodge might have done, had polley allowed It, was to form a dedicated team in June within which he could have built some unity by AUgust.6

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ended in bitter defeat, with all but one of his thirty-two

regimental and field officers killed or wounded and half his troops down or gone. But the men of the Army of Northern Virginia, loyal to their regimental commanders and comrades, went unflinchingly into the devastating fire. Collectively, they did what neither individuals nor less well-fonned teams could ever do. By implication: If your organization is facing a period of uncertainty, change, or stress, now is the time to build a strong culture with good lines of interior communication,

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mutual understanding, and shared "bligation. A clear senSe of common purpose 'and a well-formed cunar3derie are essential ingredients to ensure that your \.eam, your organiz<JtJon. or your company will perform to iT', utmost when it is most needed.

Our actions today may make the difference between success or failure tomorrow. The challenge is to anticipate what problems lie ahead and what preparatory steps are required now to meet them later. Enabling all to mal<.e inf0rmed decisioTl<::, informing all to understand your decisions, and organizing aii to discipline their decisions are among the enduring legacies of Wagner Dodge's fifty-six-minute struggle for survival in Mann Gulch.

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